My son's down there, he thought, feeling as though he were watching from the satellite's vantage point hundreds of miles overhead. My son's in one of those rafts, and I can't do a damned thing about it.

He wasn't even certain that his son was leading this raid. Admiral Bainbridge had refused point-blank to disclose the names of the men assigned to the raid, and the source of his information, a mid-level staffer on NAVSPECWARGRU-Two's planning staff, had been unable to provide confirmation. When he'd confronted Blake, two days ago at the SEAL base in Little Creek, he'd been bluffing, hoping to get his son to admit to things the congressman had heard but been unable to verify.

But somehow, it was easier for him to assume that Blake was aboard one of those rafts. It was the uncertainty, the not knowing, that made the waiting hell.

He turned to Captain Granger, stiff and starched in his Navy dress whites. "I just want you to know, Ben, that whatever happens now, I'm grateful."

Granger glanced at him but said nothing, and Murdock sensed the resentment the former SEAL must still feel at the strong-arm tactics the congressman had employed to gain entrance to this inner sanctum. Granger, no doubt, had been forced to spend some political capital of his own to win this privilege for a mere congressional VIP. I really called in all my markers on this one, Murdock thought. I just hope I can provide value for value next week when it comes time for the HMAC's vote.

An electronic peep sounded from a speaker somewhere in the room's ceiling, startling in its intensity. "Foreman, Hammer Alfa," a voice whispered, and Murdock had his confirmation. Even through the hiss of static, he recognized his son's voice. "Sierra-Charlie. Moving."

"They're all aboard," Mason said, probably for Murdock's benefit since everyone else in the room apparently knew what was going on. "We're Foreman. Hammer Alfa is the Yuduki Maru strike team. Sierra-Charlie is the code phrase meaning everything's on sched."

"How much longer we got on this bird?" Bradley asked.

"Three minutes, General," Carter replied. "It's going to be damned tight."

"KH-twelve-slash-nine will be over the horizon in fourteen minutes," a technician added. "There'll only be an eleven-minute hole in the coverage."

"Maybe so," Mason said. "But a hell of a lot can happen in eleven minutes."

"We'll still have voice communications, through our AWACS Sentry," Admiral Bainbridge said. He cast a hard glance at Murdock, then looked away. "Being able to see wouldn't help that much anyway."

He resents me, too, Murdock thought. The hell with him. The hell with all of them. I just want my son to come out of this alive. He turned his full attention to the video-game action unfolding on the screen.

2316 hours (Zulu +3)

Freighter Yuduki Maru

Lieutenant Blake Murdock unhooked his harness, then chinned himself gently over the edge of the deck. Shadows moved on the starboard side of the fantail, forty feet away. MacKenzie materialized like a shadow out of darkness, an H&K MP5 clenched in black-gloved hands. Murdock signaled with a thumbs up, then unharnessed his own subgun. He could hear voices in the distance coming from somewhere forward, and a harsh bark of laughter. From elsewhere, higher up, came the metallic rattle of booted feet descending a ship's ladder, then the clump of a fast walk across a steel deck. "Hajibaba! Kojaw meetavawnam jak paydaw konam?"

Still, no excitement in the other voices, no sign that the SEALs had been spotted yet.

The two bodies and their weapons went over the stern, the splashes lost in the churning of the freighter's wake. Blood streaked the deck, but in the near-darkness it looked black, like grease or spilled coffee.

Murdock crouched alongside the superstructure, his H&K aiming up the covered port-side walkway that led past the bridge superstructure and toward the forward deck. More shadows slipped onto the deck alongside; Magic, Doc, and Roselli. MacKenzie, the Professor, and Boomer were all aboard to starboard.

Lightly, Murdock touched Roselli's shoulder and gestured toward the ship's bow. Weapon at the ready, Roselli nodded, then started forward along the walkway.

2317 hours (Zulu +3)

Oiler Hormuz

Jaybird rose above the sentry, a K-bar knife gleaming scarlet-black in the half-light, the guard lying on the deck with a six-inch gash through throat and windpipe, jugular and carotid. There was a very great deal of blood, but no one could have heard the man's muffled gurglings as Jaybird had lowered him to the deck.

The SEAL felt the first tremors of reaction and viciously suppressed them. With all his training, with all his mental preparation, the Iranian lying at his feet was the first man he'd ever killed, and for a trembling moment, the shock threatened to overwhelm him.

Then training reasserted itself. The man was an enemy who would have sounded the alarm if he'd heard Jaybird's stealthy approach from behind. Now he was a dead enemy; Jaybird's long hours of hand-to-hand had made the stealthy approach, the snatch, reach, and slash, almost instinctive. The SEAL wiped his K-bar on the man's pants leg and sheathed it. Behind him, Kosciuszko and Nicholson slithered over the ship's gunwales and onto her rusty deck.

The first thing Jaybird noticed about the ship was her stench. The Hormuz stank, a repulsive mix of diesel oil, dead fish vomit, and unwashed bodies. Next he noticed the peculiar twist to her motion underfoot. Jaybird wondered if the ancient vessel's owners had really spent much effort making her seaworthy. The old, low-slung tanker wallowed in the worsening seas, and each swell threatened to break over the exposed quarterdeck and swamp her.

Gold Squad had approached Hormuz according to plan, with a length of lightweight wire rope snagging the vessel's prow and drawing the two CRRCs together roughly amidships. Now they were aboard, facing an unknown number of Iranian troops, possibly army, possibly navshurawn, as their marines were called. "Hammer Bravo," Lieutenant DeWitt's voice whispered over his radio headset. "Go!"

That was the signal for the Hormuz assault team to move out. Holding his H&K shoulder-high and probing the darkness to his front, Jaybird moved with cautious, toe-first steps, flowing like a shadow against the rust streaks and flaking paint of the tanker's superstructure. Thirty steps forward took him to a safety-roped monkey-walk and the top of a ladder. Below was the Hormuz's well deck, picturesquely called no-man's-land aboard a merchantman because its low freeboard shipped water in heavy weather. The area was cluttered with carelessly piled hills of hempen rope, rusty cable, a sloppily stowed derrick, and cargo pallets and crates. Hatches in the deck were propped open, revealing shafts of oily light from below; to his right, the railed walkway ran across the front of the ship's superstructure. A soldier in fatigues and a helmet leaned against the railing, staring across the well deck, his AKM slung muzzle-down across his back.

"Hammer Bravo-six, this is Bravo-three," he whispered into his lip mike, drawing back behind the corner of the superstructure. "One tango, 0-1 deck forward."

"Take him down," came the answer.

"Rog."

Bracing the H&K high, Jaybird took a deep breath, then swung sharply around the corner of the superstructure, drawing down on the target's center of mass and squeezing the trigger simultaneously.

He'd deliberately set the weapon for semi-automatic fire; the sound-suppressed weapon hissed and spat with each tug of the trigger, slamming round after round into the Iranian, who staggered back a step, reached for his assault rifle, then collapsed onto the deck. His helmet hit the superstructure with a metallic clunk. Jaybird held his position, scanning left and right, watching for some reaction to the sudden sound.